Crossover madness

[Enola Straight]

According to this site:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html
Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, and other sci-fi series are all part of the same universe!


Comments?

[Ryushikaze]

It's interesting, but it all depends on assuming tommy imagined the whole other universes as well, as opposed to incorporating them into St. Elsewhere. And that's just for the initial leap outwards. Connections further out become increasingly tenuous, though I haven't found what certain links are supposed to be for a lot of these yet (and others are just great big NFD's, like Doctor Who and its spinoffs).

[Vendetta]

Quite a lot of that is based on out of context references to characters, or commonly named objects or places, rather than hard crossover appearances.

Limiting the whole St Elsewhere thing to actual hard crossover shrinks it drastically.

[weemadando]

I wish I could find the site again, but there was one that had a quite good argument that the Buffy-verse, X-files-verse and a few others were all the same... Quite amusing really.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I have a personal theory that the events of Conan the Barbarian take place sometime after Mad Max but before Waterworld, and that Mad Max itself is set shortly after the events of the film Fail-Safe...obviously the Fail-Safe failed at it.

I call it my "Grand Unifed Cataclysm" theory.

[GuppyShark]

It's interesting, but it all depends on assuming tommy imagined the whole other universes as well, as opposed to incorporating them into St. Elsewhere. And that's just for the initial leap outwards. Connections further out become increasingly tenuous, though I haven't found what certain links are supposed to be for a lot of these yet (and others are just great big NFD's, like Doctor Who and its spinoffs).

He has a key on the website which specifies the linkages.

Unfortunately the Sci-fi ones are very haphazard. Angel is linked to Aliens via a mention of Weyland-Utani, and Red Dwarf had a spaceship graveyard scene with a bunch of destroyed ships from other franchises - this was apparently enough to bring half the sci-fi universes in.

The modern series' coexistances are plausible. Firefly, Aliens, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who existing in the same continuity is not.

[Ryushikaze]

It's interesting, but it all depends on assuming tommy imagined the whole other universes as well, as opposed to incorporating them into St. Elsewhere. And that's just for the initial leap outwards. Connections further out become increasingly tenuous, though I haven't found what certain links are supposed to be for a lot of these yet (and others are just great big NFD's, like Doctor Who and its spinoffs).

He has a key on the website which specifies the linkages.

Unfortunately the Sci-fi ones are very haphazard. Angel is linked to Aliens via a mention of Weyland-Utani, and Red Dwarf had a spaceship graveyard scene with a bunch of destroyed ships from other franchises - this was apparently enough to bring half the sci-fi universes in.

The modern series' coexistances are plausible. Firefly, Aliens, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who existing in the same continuity is not.

Yeah, I found the key after posting. If not for the really flimsy connections and 'Hi Honey I'm Home'- which strikes me as being one of those shows to override st. Elswhere, a number of these connections simply wouldn't exist. Using anything from NewHart, for example, shouldn't count, simply because the entire series is Bob's dream, and so any and all references to ST. Elsewhere or any other show can be seen as references to these shows in Bob's dream, much as one might dream of being in another TV show.

As for Red Dwarf/ Who, I'll need to double check bu I'm 90% certain that what they say is a TARDIS isn't.

Also, if they're using Weyland Utani as a link, they're missing a few. Same with using starship cameos as evidence.
I also have a feeling they're mistaking a police box for the TARDIS in chelmsford.

[Majin Gojira]

As a "Wold Newton Scholar" (having written on crossover Kaiju, what a biologically sound Maple White Land (The Lost World) would look like, the WNU origins of Marvle's Runaways, and tracked all crosovers relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to two steps out), not only have I seen it before, but I don't think it's that impressive.

Next year (IIRC), a new Wold Newton book will be published that is a Crossover Chronology with Several Thousand entries, and details a well thought out criteria for Crossovers in various media forms (generally forcing Crossovers to be Canonical).

Future Crossovers are generally taken as "A Possible Future" that may or may not happen.

The other rule is to have fun with it, and work it all our for yourself.

Personally, I generally choose a single starting point (as I did with Buffy) and then stop having crossovers be legitimate after the 6th connection.

But considering that I can only take 2 steps to get to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, James Bond, Ultraman Tiga, Godzilla, Digimon Tamers and Batman from Buffy, it covers an INSANE amount of characters and series already.

And Buffy directly crosses over with Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, The X-Files, Ghostbusters and The Man From Uncle.

I'm actually frightened to see what things beyond that look like, but I already know that on the 3rd teir are things such as Gargoyles, The Tempest, Perry Mason, and (because in the Kaiju timeline, I use biology to effect crossovers) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

So, just choose a point and stop at six. Keeps ya sane.

[Vehrec]

I don't admit any link that uses the Cthulhu mythos as a link between universes, because I hold that creatures like Cthulhu are multiversal and may exist in multiple incarnations in several worlds. The unifying theme of a cold ancient uncaring universe is the main point of Lovecraft's original work. Multiple cold uncaring universes, even in his own work, is not an incorrect interpretation.

Put bluntly, I'm picky about crossovers. This one ain't so great. The appearance of a firefly-class spaceship in a 'blink or you'll miss it' moment is not a crossover-it's unlikely to even indicate one. Parallel development is much easier to swallow than a STL spaceship from the 'verse somehow winding up on Caprica.

[Vendetta]

I have a personal theory that the events of Conan the Barbarian take place sometime after Mad Max but before Waterworld, and that Mad Max itself is set shortly after the events of the film Fail-Safe...obviously the Fail-Safe failed at it.

I call it my "Grand Unifed Cataclysm" theory.

Conan explicitly takes place in the distant past. One of the earliest works Howard wrote was a guideline sheet to the Hyborian Age so he could keep his continuity straight, and that gives explicit reference to where modern European and African geography fits in with Hyborea.

The only thing you can intentionally link it to is the Cthulhu mythos, because whilst nothing's mentioned by name, the same kind of language is used to describe the kind of creeping horrors Conan faced from time to time as Lovecraft used. (Howard and Lovecraft were frequent correspondents, and known admirers of each other's writing, so these thematic links are probably intentional).

[Majin Gojira]

I don't admit any link that uses the Cthulhu mythos as a link between universes, because I hold that creatures like Cthulhu are multiversal and may exist in multiple incarnations in several worlds. The unifying theme of a cold ancient uncaring universe is the main point of Lovecraft's original work. Multiple cold uncaring universes, even in his own work, is not an incorrect interpretation.

Indeed, which is why I take them on a case by case basis most of the time.

I did the same thing when Buffy crossed with Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

But the Real Ghostbusters episode "Collect Call of Cathulhu" is just to much fun to ignore. Sure, it doesn't have the pure bleakness to it, but it was, for the longest time, the best filmed version of the Mythos out there. Basically, I allow for "Conan Exceptions".

Current title holder is the "Silent Film" of Call of Cthulhu to me.

Put bluntly, I'm picky about crossovers. This one ain't so great. The appearance of a firefly-class spaceship in a 'blink or you'll miss it' moment is not a crossover-it's unlikely to even indicate one. Parallel development is much easier to swallow than a STL spaceship from the 'verse somehow winding up on Caprica.

Then there's "They both use the same fictional Brand!" crossovers, which are similarly muddy. Especially with the future.

I take both on a case by case basis, but I can't fault you on your methods.